RIYADH/LONDON (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia has sacked Deputy
Health Minister Ziad Memish who has been criticized by some
international scientists over his handling of the deadly MERS
virus that has infected 575 people in the kingdom and spread
around the world.

Memish was a key figure in Saudi Arabia's efforts to contain
the spread of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), a virus
that causes coughing, fever and sometimes fatal pneumonia.

It has killed 190 people in Saudi Arabia since it was
identified two years ago and cases have been found in other
countries in the Middle East, Europe, Asia and the United
States. So far, much evidence points to camels as a possible
source for MERS infection.

"Acting Health Minister Adel Fakieh has issued a decision
today to relieve Deputy Health Minister Doctor Ziad Memish from
his position," said a statement posted on the ministry's website
in Arabic on Monday. It did not elaborate.

Memish is the second senior Saudi health official to lose
his job in six weeks after Health Minister Abdullah al-Rabeeah
was sacked when the rate of new infections started to rise
rapidly in mid-April.

Memish was criticized by international scientists
interviewed for a Reuters Special Report last month for what
they saw as a reluctance to collaborate with some specialist
laboratories around the world offering to help investigate the
possible source of MERS and explore how it spreads.

Experts say the rising number of infections and deaths could
have been stopped well within the two years since MERS first
emerged - and would have been if Saudi authorities had been more
open to outside help offered by specialist teams around the
world with the technology, know-how and will to conduct
scientific studies.

HALTING INFECTIONS

Memish did not respond to emails from Reuters on Tuesday
requesting comment on his dismissal.

Last month, he said he was "surprised" by criticism of Saudi
Arabia's response to MERS and did not respond to the allegations
directly concerning his own role.

David Heymann, a professor of infectious disease
epidemiology, chairman of Public Health England, head of global
health security at Britain's Royal Institute of International
Affairs and one of the scientists who had criticized Saudi
handling of the outbreak, said on Tuesday the crucial issues
were halting MERS infections and working out how they occur.

"Number one, Saudi Arabia needs to make sure it has
appropriate infection control practices in hospitals, where
cases are being transmitted, and number two, they need to do the
case-control study that will hopefully tell them how people are
getting infected," he said.

Asked whether he thought Memish's dismissal would prompt
things to move along more quickly, he said: "I don't know that,
but I hope so. I would hope the process will speed up and these
things will be done."

Acting Saudi Health Minister Fakieh wrote last week in a
response to the Reuters Special Report that Saudi Arabia was
working with international scientific organisations to improve
its response to MERS, and pledged to continue that
collaboration.

He did not comment in his response on the role played by
Memish.

The Health Ministry said late on Monday that it had recorded
four new confirmed cases of MERS in the previous 24 hours in
Jeddah, Medina and the northern province of al-Jawf, and that
one more person had died from the disease over that period.

The rate of infection has slowed since mid-May, which public
health officials say may be a result of improved infection
control procedures introduced in Saudi hospitals.